Courses

If you follow the news, you have seen that critical race theory (CRT) has recently attracted an outpouring of political and media attention. Over 30 state legislatures across the country have introduced bills to limit the discussion of racial history. Everywhere from local school boards to the US Congress, CRT has become one of the most maligned and misunderstood intellectual movements in society today. This course seeks to illuminate the importance of CRT and its contributions to the racial justice movement, and to explore how myths and misunderstandings around CRT emerged.

CRT is an academic and legal framework that was first developed by legal scholars in the 1970s and ’80s following the civil rights movement. It denotes that systemic racism is part of American society—from education and housing to employment and healthcare. In this course, we will learn about the history and political movements that produced these ideas, seeking to gain a working understanding of the core concepts of CRT: intersectionality, social construction, representation, and structural racism—with an emphasis on grounding those ideas in current events, contemporary issues, and our personal lives. In addition to shedding light on the evolution of CRT, this course will also cover how specific law and policy reforms can help dismantle racial inequality.